Chasing Freedom
by pippagethetook01
Summary: He is trapped. The window is too high, the door is locked, but after five years, he finds a way out. However, the cell wasn't the only thing holding him hostage...Rated for possible violence.
1. Clocks and Crowbars

2:00. The red numbers on the muggle-manufactured clock burned themselves into his eyes. The clock, the source of entertainment here, his television, he supposed. He also supposed that they didn't use a real (by that he meant _magic_) clock because he might somehow use the power of a timepiece to break out of the cell. Ah, the cell. The musty, austere cell that had been his home for…

How many?

_Five years_, he thought as he counted the scratches in the wall. _Five long, restless years_. But now they were ending.

He waited for the clock to flick to 2:01. Sixty, forty-five, thirty seconds. The rain drummed its fingers on the slit in the wall with a piece of glass over it. They called it a window. He called it a taunting, malevolent monster. It was exactly two inches out of his reach when he pushed his cot over to it. He jumped, as high as he could without fear of breaking the springs holding the sorry cot together. But there was no sill. His fingernails once touched the cold glass and it was like he had just touched freedom. He had-

2:01.

There came the footsteps. He listened. He knew the sound exactly. The leather boots on a hefty man with the black soles. Clack-clack-clack-clack. And then they were gone, like always. They came back, patrolling the cages on each side of them. The footsteps that haunted him. They grew fainter. Then they came back for the last time. As always.

He picked up the crowbar he had made from one of the bars of his cot. It had taken him twenty-seven days to bend it. He pulled open the door. The partially rotted wood did not protest as it was cracked, did not squeak or creak.

He stood. Looking left and right, he stepped out into the hallway, footsteps muffled, bare feet against a quarter inch of dust punctuated with foot prints. He started walking in the opposite way of the end the footsteps had left. He smiled and had to refrain from screaming. Finally, finally, after all those days, weeks, months, years- finally!

He quickened his pace. He would only have fifteen minutes before the footsteps would be back, checking on the cells. _And what will they find in mine? _He thought, _a broken cot, a crude crowbar, and scratches on the wall. But no me!_

He had gotten about twenty feet down the hall when a voice from a cell pricked his ears. "You're not the guard," It stated, as if just to reassure himself that it was true. "You aren't the guard; you're a prisoner like me, good old Ron Weasley,"

His voice cracked. It had been five years since he had spoken civilly with another human. "I…I'm not the guard, no. But you don't sound like Ron. I think I used to know him."

"Well, this is only what's left of Ron speaking." The voice sighed. "And who does the corpse of Ronald Bilius Weasley have the pleasure of speaking to?"

"Well, I'm…I'm," He couldn't remember for a moment. It had been so long, so long. "I'm Harry Potter, I think."

And, as if just speaking his name was more magic than Merlin himself, everything came flooding back to him. Ron. Hermione. Voldemort. Magic. Hogwarts. Everything had been put away in effort to escape, or at least not to hurt. And last came the memory of why he was here.

He was Voldemort's prisoner.


	2. Crowbars and Corners

_He was Voldemort's prisoner._ The war. The narrow defeat. Friends, shopkeepers, professors, anyone without a Dark Mark was put in this prison.

Harry could have stood there and remembered all day. It felt so good, to know something other than the walls, floor, cot, door, and window of his cell. However, Ron broke him unceremoniously from his reverie. "Harry?" Ron jumped up. Harry could hear his feet drawing closer to the door. These, unlike the guard's, he was glad to hear. He remembered.

Harry smiled. He peered through the barred window in the door into the cell of his best friend. "Ron! It's really…I can't believe…this is-" He stopped abruptly when he noticed the clock in Ron's cell, identical to his own. "2:10? Ron, we have to go!" Harry started off. He kicked himself mentally. _Of course, nitwit, Ron can't come if he wants to! _He thought. He ran back to his cell, picked up the crowbar, and headed back. His hands were sweaty, as if he had just dipped them in a basin.

It started slipping. He didn't have time. Only three fingers held it…two…one…

CLANG.

There it was. Harry stood, mouth agape. The…crowbar? The…ground? The…GUARD…

He bent, picked it up, and ran to Ron's cell. There was no use being quiet now. "Harry! Leave! I'll be fine!" Ron yelled at him.

Harry couldn't speak. Ron's door proved to be even more difficult. He pushed, pushed, pushed. Footsteps were heard from upstairs.

Fast footsteps. Drawing nearer to the staircase…

A second clang resounded. Ron's door. Ron jumped up.

"Which way?" Harry asked.

"YOU DON'T KNOW? YOU BROKE DOWN OUR CELLS AND YOU DON'T KNOW WHICH WAY IS OUT?" Ron bellowed.

Harry thought…thought…thought…which way had they come in…five years ago…? Ah! The opposite of the staircase, further on past Ron's cell. Harry grabbed Ron's wrist and dragged him along until he started running with him. The crowbar was still clenched in his hand, so tightly his knuckles were white.

Twenty feet.

A voice, the one belonging to the guard, filled the hall. "Stop! _Anschlag_!"

"A German?" Ron said, recognizing the accent. "He'll cut us to bits! Rip us apart! Eat us for luncheon!"

"No time for cannibalism, Ron," Harry said, pulling him onward.

But there was no hope. The guard was simply too fast. His heavy footsteps, which Harry thought were the result of too much to eat, were a product of muscle mass built up on this brute. He had long legs. He had a wand. He had every advantage.

Except for one.

Harry flung the crowbar. It whistled through the air, and hit the guard in the chest. He stopped, heaving. Every bit of 'wind' had been knocked out of him. He choked, wheezed, and began to recover…

To see Harry and Ron rounding a corner leading to small rooms (one of which was his office)…

And an unlocked door to freedom.


	3. Corners and CHUCK NORRIS

_Okay, kids. Here's the inevitable writer's block chapter. The characters move around and say stupid stuff. It probably won't make a difference in the next chapter at all._

_And an unlocked door to freedom. _He turned the knob. He stopped. How stupid. A month of planning and he hadn't thought of that all-important stick. His and Ron's wands-how were they going to get past the inevitable guards outside of the doors without them? Show up, introduce themselves as Chuck Norrises and hope the guards left? Threaten them that they were The-Boy-Who-Lived and his best friend and their dynamic duo-ness would probably knock them into the next dimension?

"Ah, what the hell, let's go for it." Ron said, able to read the author's writing as she wrote it. "Dang straight I can."

They opened the door.

"No, actually, 'Ron flung open the door heroically. He looked like Chuck Norris,' would be more accurate." Ron said.

Sorry, Ron.

Ron flung open the door heroically. He looked like Chuck Norris. Harry and Ron-

"I think it's Ron and Harry. I mean, really. I look like Chuck Norris. Who's going to come first?" Ron said, crossing Chuck Norris-resembling arms across his Chuck Norris-resembling chest.

Ron and Harry-

"Maybe I should just be Chuck Norris. It would be easier."

Chuck Norris, of whom the chief export is pain, and Harry walked out of the door Chuck had earlier flung open ever so heroically.

"That's more like it."

He introduced himself to the two brutish guards, which he quickly took out with roundhouse kicks to the face dealt by his legs, Law and Order. Harry was speechless. He wished he could jive like Ron.

"CHUCK!"

He wished he could jive like Chuck. Even breathing Chuck's air was enough to make him want to take off the mask…

REVEALING…

THE NEW AND IMPROVED KIRSTIE ALLEY!

"WHAT? KIRSTIE ALLEY?" Ron/Chuck yelled, "WHAT? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?"

REVEALING…

CATHERINE ZETA-JONES!

"That's better. Really, Pippage, you've gotta learn these things."

Catherine looked over at Chuck.

"ADMIRINGLY."

Catherine looked over admiringly at Chuck. She jumped into his arms and they ran off into the sunset, where there was a swingin' pool party going down. Chuck jumped into the pool, doing seventeen full rotations and a jack-knife in the air before landing gracefully. He did not get wet. The water got Chuck Norris'd.

They had a wonderful time and made cupcakes.

"WHAT? I USE NAPALM TO QUELL MY HEARTBURN AND I AM EATING CUPCAKES?"

Catherine had a wonderful time and made cupcakes while Chuck was eating seven full racks of ribs with Habanero sauce on them. They were not spicy enough for him, so he lit them on fire. Then, and only then, could he satisfy his cravings for…

HOT FOOD.

-Fin-

And aren't you grateful?


End file.
